


Stricken

by juliesioux



Series: Head Canons, Missing Scenes & Fixes [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief, Grief Sex, Love, Mention of Character Death, Romantic Soulmates, Sex, True Love, olicity - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-08
Updated: 2016-04-08
Packaged: 2018-06-01 00:19:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6493522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/juliesioux/pseuds/juliesioux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is my head canon. After Laurel's death, Oliver returns to the bunker after everyone leaves the hospital. </p><p>Felicity follows to check on him as she doesn't know where else to go in her grief.<br/>They fall into one another in the midst of their grief as a way to keep themselves anchored. They love each other desperately and find solace and peace in physical comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stricken

**Stricken**

_Her tears fell_   
_And cleaved the earth_   
_To her bones._

Oliver doesn’t remember how he got back to the bunker. One minute he was watching Felicity take Thea home and Diggle...Diggle walking off like a blind man into the moonless night. He could see a rage filled cloud as it started to envelop his friend. He could smell the stink of guilt start to emanate from Diggle’s pores as the older man visibly shook in helpless regret. There was nothing he could do or say to alleviate his pain, so he let him go.

Somehow, he got Quentin home. He spent a few hours with him as he and Dinah made arrangements for her to come as soon as possible. Laurel’s funeral needed planning...Oliver couldn’t think past that point. Her funeral. Laurel’s funeral. He felt all ties to his past life as Oliver “Ollie” Queen slowly disappear. He felt himself disappear with the memories of what was but never for what could have been.

He was breathing too fast and his head was beginning to spin. He really should call Thea and make sure she was ok. He should call Lyla to make sure John was ok. He should call Donna to make sure Felicity was ok.

Felicity…

He can still feel her in his arms. For one brief moment in the midst of the maelstrom of panic and fear, he found his footing. He found that moment to breathe and discover a small well of hope and all because of the unfathomably infinite weight of her love. He could still smell her perfume on his shirt and the tears fell down his cheeks unnoticed.

Oliver sat helplessly on the stairs of the comcentre and stared at his hands. Everything blurred, his heart grew heavy and the world slowed its ceaseless rotation for just a moment. He closed his eyes and pushed all the thoughts from his mind and just sat in empty blankness until the pain he was in was at a comfortable distance. He was drowning in darkness and just needed to find a way to surface, if only for a moment.

“Oliver?” came a soft voice from in front of him.  
“Oliver?” it came again, only slightly louder this time.

He looked up and opened his eyes, thinking it was Thea but unable to move his body.

“Felicity?” he whispered.

She crossed the distance between them with a quick staccato punctuated series of strides. Gently, she took his face in her tiny but strong hands and smoothed his face clear of tears. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her for fear she would disappear in a blink of an eye. He found himself breathing in quick shallow breaths again and felt the world grow dim.

“Oliver,” she said sharply, “you need to take a deep breath. You are starting to hyperventilate.”

Blinking rapidly, Oliver did as he was told. As oxygen returned to his body, he was able to take in her red rimmed eyes, her red tipped nose, and flushed cheeks. She had been crying, a lot by the looks of it, maybe by herself or with Thea. His heart grew slightly lighter the nearer she was and he felt guilty for being glad she was here with him now.

“Let me get you some water,” she said quietly, “just sit there, ok?”

He could only nod. A small smile danced across his face as she walked to the small kitchen. That she could give him such comfort and peace with just a few simple words even in the midst of her own pain filled him with awe and wonder. He hoped that one day he could repay her for her kindness and that she would accept it as freely given.

He felt a wave of loneliness and longing wash over him. It left him hollow and adrift in a fugue of grief once again. He slumped against the cool metal railings next to him and stared at the concrete floor in front of him, watching scenes from his past play out in front of him. It was an endless looping reel of entitlement, bad decisions, privilege and disaster.

“Oliver? Here,” she said quietly as she held out a bottle of water to him, “try to drink some, please.”

He heard a soft hitch in her voice and looked up into her too bright blue eyes. He loved her eyes and the soft gold flecks that occasionally surfaced in them depending on the light. But tonight they were dark and stormy, full of thunder and pain and there was nothing he could do to calm the storm raging behind them.

Instead, he instinctively reached out for her hand. He needed an anchor, something to pull him back to the earth, to centre him enough so that he could stand on his own. She was that anchor. She had been ever since he walked into her cubicle. No one before or since had been able to see him the way she did and if he had to crawl on broken glass to reach her again, he would do so gladly.

Felicity held his hand with the same desperate grasp that he held hers. She wavered before him just a bit and he felt her body shake with directionless energy through their joined hands. Silent tears slowly spilled down her cheeks. In one smooth motion, Oliver rose to his feet and gathered her in his arms.

They clung to one another under the dim bunker lights. The world stopped its rotation, as though in patient respect, and they breathed in the moment as though it could last an eternity. They made no sounds but they both wept for their fallen friend, for the shattering of all their worlds, for the devastation yet to come.

“Is Thea ok?” Oliver asked quietly after they were able to finally slow their tears enough to form thoughts.  
“Yes, I made sure she was asleep and that Parker was there for her should she wake up.”  
“Have you heard from John?”  
“Lyla called. He...he is a mess, Oliver. He blames himself for this because of Andy.”  
“I know. He just needs to be with his family and time to...time to...I don’t know…”

Felicity tightened her embrace and he felt her start to shake again.

“How are you, hon?” he asked gently as he rested his head on top of hers.  
“I don’t know,” she cried into his chest, “I just need to not be still. When I stop…”

Oliver held her tighter and let her cry. Soon his tears began again but he didn’t know what he was crying for this time. Was he crying for the loss of his oldest friend? His team mate? For the loss of Felicity? For John? For Thea? He just let the tears flow out of him and felt the darkness recede leaving a numbing grief in its place but he could breathe through that and find a small space of peace here with her.

“What are we going to do?” Felicity asked quietly.  
“I don’t know, Felicity,” he sighed, “We just need to get through the next few days. After that...I don’t know.”

Felicity looked up at him, her eyes swollen with pain and so much sadness it broke his heart all over again. He could see the questions that lurked in her gaze, ones she was too afraid to ask, so he lightly brushed stray strands of her hair back from her forehead to calm her.

“Thank you for looking after all of us.”  
“But I wasn’t here when...when…”  
“Felicity,” he said somewhat sharply, “there was nothing any of us could have done to stop what Darhk did. Nothing. He has his idol back, his powers are restored...he knows I am the Green Arrow, he knows who we all are. He…used one of my arrows to kill her.”  
“Oh, Oliver,” she said with so much tenderness he started to collapse on himself, “you cannot carry that with you. He would have found another way to do it. You know that just like I do.”

Oliver buried his face in her neck and cried out the last of the guilt. She was right. Darhk would have used his magic to kill her if he hadn’t of caught his arrow. She was dead the minute he regained his powers and their was literally nothing anyone could have done to stop him.

Memories of his mother, of Shado, of Yao, of his father and Tommy flashed like lightning behind his closed eyes. He was lost in the labyrinth of his memories, slowly drowning in a sea of regret, when he heard her voice pulling him back, willing him to step foot on her shore.

“Oliver, please,” she cried softly, “ please, you have to breathe. I won’t be able to carry you to the medical bay where the oxygen is, I can barely keep you standing.”  
“I’m sorry,” he managed to stutter out, “I just…”  
“It’s ok to grieve, but you need to breathe, too.”

The world retreated once again as they anchored each other. Oliver looked down at her and gently urged her to look up at him. There was still so much grief in her eyes but they were clearer, brighter and more like the ones he used to gaze into a few short weeks ago.

“Why did you come here?” he asked quietly.  
“I was worried about you. I was going to call but it is too easy to lie when you can’t see the person you are talking to.’  
“You were afraid I would lie to you again,” he said sadly.  
“No, I was afraid I would lie to you.”  
“What could you be afraid to say to me?”  
“I knew I would say that I am ok but I am not ok, Oliver,” she said mournfully, “I don’t know what to do.”  
“Me neither,” he sighed, “but we can get through this to…”  
“Together?”  
“Yeah.”

Felicity looked up at him with a steady gaze and looked like she was debating with herself as to what to say.

“I miss you, Felicity,” he said spontaneously as tears spilled down his cheeks unbidden, “I miss you.”

In answer, she stood on tiptoes and gently kissed his cheeks clean of tears. He felt his body freeze at the touch of her lips to his skin. Then in response, his body felt suddenly blown apart, like he was being reduced to atoms and rebuilt through the soft guidance of her love. The light of the universe burst into life around them and he felt repaired, reborn and grounded.

He opened his eyes as her lips left his cheek and he saw the storm in her beginning to subside. The grief was still there, thick and alive under both of their skins, but there was the promise of something lighter in the distance around them. He thought it was the love that shone from her eyes no matter the level of hurt or the amount of tears that fell.

“Please, don’t go,” he whispered.  
“Where would I go? When I left Thea’s, I decided to go home and I came here,” she said as tears fell again down her cheeks, “I came looking for you.”

Oliver kissed her tears away as she clung to him like she was drowning. This time, it was his turn to raise her up, to help her surface, to get her to breathe and not get lost in the growing swells of pain, guilt, and grief of what could have been.

“Breathe, Felicity,” he urged her, kissing her forehead, cheeks and eyelids, “breathe, please.”

In the midst of their shared grief, their lips found each other. There was no hesitation in the first kiss, it was long, passionate and full of mumbled platitudes and half heard proclamations of love and longing. They tasted the sorrow of the night on each other’s tongues and the grief of what was to come on each other’s lips. It was a kiss of desperation and need but it reconnected the missing parts of themselves in a blinding pulse of energy that coursed through them both.

All the hurt, all the lingering pain between them fell away and it was as though they were the only two people in the world. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to feel her smooth skin under his hands, the warm satiny wetness of her wrapped around him and the taste of her on his tongue. Her hands slid under his shirt and began tracing his seams in a hypnotic pattern that spoke to the intimacy they once shared. He needed no more encouragement from her as she pressed into his body.

Oliver picked her up and walked to the sleeping quarters he was going to call home for the night but he held his home in his arms as he crossed the threshold. Wherever she was, his heart would be no matter if they were together or not. The way she looked at him as he gently set her on her feet set his blood on fire and spoke to the endless desire and love that ran between them.

They crashed against each other as they removed layer after layer of clothing and crossed the distance between them in ways so familiar it was like breathing. Her soft skin and gentle encouragement brought him to life and before too long, she had stroked him lovingly to a place of blind ecstasy. He looked into her eyes and saw a flash of something so primal it took his breath away.

She laid on her back on the small bed and pulled him down on top of her. He found her mouth again and this time kissed her slowly, gently and with purpose, probing her with his tongue as his hand slipped between her legs. He ran a finger down her length and found her wet and ready for him. He could smell her arousal and wanted to dive into her but the urgency of her kiss and they way she moved under him meant time was not on his body’s side.

She groaned into him, sending a cascading vibration throughout his body. He felt his control beginning to slip but persisted in his exploration of her body. He knew he may not get this chance again and wanted to show her that he would worship her with his last breath. Oliver slowly circled her sensitive clit with his thumb, gently slipped two fingers deep into her body and curled them forward before sliding them out. He repeated this gentle motion until he felt her hips begin to move.

Her breath came in shorter and shorter gasps as he thrust his fingers inside her with a steadily building tempo. She held onto him, kissed him with messy abandon and a soul defining passion, before her head fell back and her body seemed to freeze in place. She shuddered as a series of orgasms rocked through her. He vaguely heard her cry out his name before he raised himself over top of her and guided his heavy, throbbing cock into her welcoming body.

With one slow, silky push, he buried himself inside her and stopped. He could feel her body pulsing around him as she locked onto him, clawed at his back and tried to pull him closer. He felt her legs wrap around his waist and his resolve left him. His hips began to move as he pushed inside her in a series of deep, penetrating thrusts. They both gasped as their bodies joined together and Felicity came again with his name on her lips and the taste of him on her tongue. He felt her body tighten and squeeze him in a tender, earth splitting embrace.

Oliver did not slow down or ease up at first, he felt the electric uncoiling of heat at the base of his spine and knew he was close but he held on to her, and then slowed his body down.

“God, Oliver,” she gasped, “I love you.”  
“I love you, too,” he breathed in awed supplication, “I always will.”

Felicity tightened her hold on him with her legs and ground her hips against him in a series of circular thrusts. He felt her orgasm building low in her pelvis and then as it rolled over them both like an earthquake, he let go and joined her in a series of uneven thrusts, releasing the uncoiling pressure within him in a long stream of hot, liquid fire.

Carefully, he laid himself next to her and covered them both with the bed’s warm duvet. Felicity turned towards him and pulled them together in a tight embrace. His tears soon pooled on their shared pillow as hers pooled on his chest.

“Why are we still crying?” she sputtered helplessly in that staccato space between pain and hysteria.  
“I don’t know,” he half laughed, half sobbed.  
“I missed you, too,” she said in the same helpless hysteria.  
“Why is that so funny?”  
“I don’t know! I think this is a euphoric response.”

They dissolved into fits of sobbing laughter until the euphoria passed and the grief they had held at bay for a few short minutes came crashing back.

“What are we going to do, Oliver? She’s gone.”  
“I don’t know but we can figure it out together,” Oliver said quietly and with purpose. In the meantime, they clung to one another and allowed their shared grief to chase them into a dreamless sleep.


End file.
